Movie Reviews

The Brink...I'm on a Ghost Radio (I wish I was in Tijuana)

Julian Kennedy | St Pete Florida | 10/23/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"The Brink: 3 out of 10: The Brink is competently lensed by Benjamin Cooper and features a pretty good performance by supporting player Heather Chase as well as decent performances by the rest of the cast. For a low budget movie this looks pretty good.

The only problem is that it has the pacing of Manos Hands of Fate and the dialogue of a public service announcement.

The movie's plot is that of a young obsessed girl who tracks down lost plans to Thomas Edison's spirit radio. Does she auction them off for millions and retire happy in her youth? Nah. She gets a few friends together and decides to build it in a spooky abandoned house. (No points for guessing that the house is haunted and if you can't guess she is obsessed with this house in particular the scripts over the top foreshadowing will definitely clue you in.) This set up easily takes half the film. And since by definition nothing scary can happen till the ghost radio is turned on it is extremely pedestrian. (The non-natural verbiage these poor actors are forced to say makes the proceedings drag even more) Of course no one informed the script of this obvious fact so we are treated to endless scenes of people unloading the car while the soundtrack warns of impending doom. I'm still not sure what horrible fate the filmmakers thought we would imagine happening between the car trunk and the kitchen table.

The ghosts do show up eventually and honestly except for a sad Andrea Yates style scene at the end they are neither scary nor impressive.

The film does seem confused by its own plot at times. (The main character refers to her little brother and finds a doll she used to have yet in flashbacks she is clearly an infant. You're opening a valuable suitcase on the side of a busy highway why? You bring extra fuses for a house you have never been to but you don't bring fuses for the machine you built?) Plus you really can't talk to the dead with a regular ghost radio. What you need is a ghost CB radio. That would rule."

Borrrrring

The Tao of Netflix | Washington, DC | 05/25/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The movie concept is a fun one, but unfortunately completely fails on execution. In short, someone discovers Edison's invention for communicating with the dead through a radio-like device. Unsurprisingly, the device (SPOILER) ends up enabling the spirits to interact with the living in a way the living didn't expect. Unfortunately, so many things go wrong with this one. First, the acting is terrible. Only one of the cast is even remotely believable, the rest is a bad soap opera. Second, the story ends up mutating into something mundanely predictable and downright annoyingly stupid. I, perhaps much more than the average viewer, am more than willing to sit back and let a movie roll without overly criticizing plot holes. However, in this case, there is nothing else otherwise present that distracts me from the plot holes. Third, the special effects are laughably bad. The ghost characters are more annoying than they are scary, and the few parts of them doing something to a living person are actually quite funny in just how unfamiliar the director is at making acting look real. Gotta recommend a big pass on this one."

Truly a Scary Ghost Story,OR was it REEL !

guestar57 | Porterville,Ca.USA | 04/10/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The BRINKwww.thunderheadstudios.com/brinkA Ben Cooper filmStarring Rachel Balzer and Mitch TolesVery scary film, Great acting and just looked good.Any project that uses Thomas Edison in a horror plot, Hey, where could they go wrong.There is be-headings, Multiple drownings and some truly shocking scenes.Script was by John Bowker and Cooper.That Mitch Toles,He works a lot must be talented, Huh !I keep looking on Ebay for one of these Edison " Talk To The Dead " phones, No luck yet.The shocker could be "HEY",Was this like Sam Raimi's Evil Dead or James Cameron's Titanic ?"